Detention
by Ranger Hitomi
Summary: Keith hatches a daring plan to escape from detention. Nothing's more daring than the old "escape through the air vent" routine... right?


_I love writing about our Rangers' exploits at school. It's so fun. :) (Plus, I adore Kincaid. He's great.)This is pretty non-shippy for the _most_ part but it focuses on Keith and Kate anyway._

_I don't own the franchise, or there would be a spinoff Ranger anime. _

**Detention**

_Tick… tick… tick… tap, tap, tap…_

Keith drummed his fingers in mild agitation as he watched the clock tick slowly away, not even bothering to do the reading for Ms. April's class.

_Tick… tick… tick… tap, tap, tap…_

Kate stared idly at _The Complete Guide to Pokémon Habitats_, only vaguely aware that she had read the same line repeatedly for the past half hour. Her mind was focused on the broken toaster oven in the teachers' lounge.

_Tick… tick… tick… tap, tap, tap-_

"If you continue to drum on your desk, I will add an hour to your detention time," said a sharp voice from the front of the room, causing both students to jump slightly. They both looked up at their teacher, whose swirly blond hair was just visible over a copy of the _Almia Times_ that had clearly been confiscated from Kellyn.

Keith pulled his hand off the desk and scowled.

"And if you scowl at me again, I will make you run laps for another hour," Mr. Kincaid added, still hidden behind the paper.

Keith gave Kate an incredulous stare, and she shrugged apologetically.

_We've only got an hour left,_ she mouthed.

Her companion sighed and glanced out the window. It was such a nice day out – it seemed as though every student at the school was outside playing catch, or chasing each other around with water balloons. And here he was, stuck in detention – just because he and Kellyn had been caught trying to smuggle two Pichu into the teachers' lounge for Kate at two in the morning. There hadn't even been any admiration for a perfect capture for either student! And Kate had been trying to fix the toaster oven, not hack into computers to change her grades. (Though in hindsight, maybe she shouldn't have told Mr. Kincaid that she could have gotten into the computers without the help of the Pichu.) Kincaid had refused point-blank to have all three in detention at once, so Kellyn was trapped in the gym cleaning exercise equipment, probably while listening to Mr. Kaplan's wild conspiracy theories about famous corporations working toward total world domination through mass brainwashing or some other nonsense.

Mr. Kincaid wrinkled his nose in distaste as he tossed the paper aside, muttering under his breath as though something in the newspaper had mortally offended him in some way. He glanced at the pair sitting three desks apart in front of him and followed Keith's gaze out the window. He leapt to his feet as he saw what the students were doing outside.

"Sweet mother of Darkrai, are those _water balloons_?" he shrieked. "Have they no respect for school property?" He rushed to the door, turning only to tell the pair to remain seated, and hurried into the hallway.

The second the door closed behind him, Keith's scowl returned. "_No running in the halls_, Mr. Kincaid. I swear, next time he tells me not to run in the halls, I'm putting Zubat droppings on his chair." He leaned back in his chair and gazed wistfully out the window again. "It's a shame it's such a nice day and we're stuck in here."

Kate closed the book she didn't read on her desk and let out a quiet sigh. "It's my fault you got stuck in detention. Sorry."

Keith looked at her in surprise. "What are you talking about? I don't remember the last nighttime excursion that was that fun. There's a difference between wandering the hallways and wandering the school grounds at night. Besides," he added, smirking, "if it's anyone's fault, it's Kellyn's for tripping over the potted plant in the hall. If he hadn't cursed so loudly, Kincaid might not have heard us."

"I guess…"

Keith stood up and walked over to her desk, patting her gently on the shoulder. "Hey, don't worry about it, Kate. Tell you what. Let's make a break for it."

Kate looked at him blankly. "What…? Break out of detention, you mean?"

"That's right."

"We'll get twice as much detention for tomorrow if we do," she pointed out.

"Yeah, but it's supposed to rain tomorrow, so it doesn't matter that much, does it?"

"And we only have, like, fifty minutes left anyway."

"There's only an hour 'till sunset!" Keith said. "Even half an hour of freedom is worth it in this weather."

"I don't know… How are we even going to escape? The door's been locked from the _outside_ to prevent students from doing exactly that ever since the time Ponte stole Swirly-Hair's grade book and flushed it in the nearest toilet."

Keith raised an eyebrow. "Are you backing down on a dangerous quest? That's rather uncharacteristic of you." He folded his arms. "Rangers never back down from a challenge." He eyed the window, beyond which Kincaid was chasing a student who had accidentally hit him in the face with a water balloon. "Looks like Swirly-Hair won't be back until he fixes his hair again, anyway, and that could take a while."

In spite of herself, she cracked a grin. "All right. What's your escape plan?"

Keith started pacing in front of her desk. "Because the door is locked and the windows now inconveniently open only a couple of inches, which I suspect is Kincaid's second foolproof plan to prevent students from throwing his lesson plans out the window like Kellyn did that one time, I have deduced that the only means of escape is through _there_." Keith pointed at the air vent on the wall at the back of the classroom. It was a wide, rather old air vent, placed about six feet off the floor.

Kate's grin vanished. "Oh no," she protested. "I am _not_ going in one of those things again. Ever. Can't we just, I don't know, break open a window or something?"

Keith stopped pacing, a mortified expression on his face. "Break a window?" he echoed. "If we break a window, Swirly-Hair will brutally murder us and make it look like an accident. No, we're sticking with the air vent."

"But-"

"Don't worry, _I'll _be the one to go through the air vent," Keith assured her. "I'll come back around after I get through to the library and unlock the door. Then we can make our escape through the library window."

Kate glanced out the window again, where Kincaid was now waving his arms wildly at the unfortunate water ballooner, yelling what was probably a promise of a month's detention at her. His pompadour drooped over his face, dripping with water.

"Okay," she said, "let's hurry and get this grille off."

Keith smiled broadly. "You're the best. What do you need?"

She examined the grille covering the vent carefully for about a minute. "Flat tip screwdriver," she said finally.

"You don't have one?"

She looked at him with a pained expression. "You think he would let me have a screwdriver in _detention_?"

"Point taken. Where are we going to get one, then?"

She pointed at Kincaid's desk. "Go see what he's got in there, and we'll see what I can use."

He hurried toward the desk as Kate carefully climbed onto a chair and examined the screws set in the grille. There were four screws holding it in place, none of them set _too_ tightly, but without a screwdriver, she would have no chance of getting it off. She climbed down and glanced out the window, where Kincaid was now confiscating Frisbees from a group of indignant Mechanics students.

_Good, there's still time._

On the other side of the room, Keith was rifling through the drawers on Mr. Kincaid's desk. There was nothing particularly useful in it – papers, hairspray, a new grade book. He tossed aside _Surefire Ways to Gain Your Boss's Approval_ and _Influential Megalomaniacs of the Twentieth Century_ and frowned at the tape, sticky notes, paperclips, and binder clips carefully organized at the bottom of the drawer.

"There's nothing in here but office supplies," Keith called out. "Well, that and some books that he probably thinks will help get him promoted to Supreme Viceroy of Detention or something."

"That's fine," Kate replied vaguely. "Bring me a few paper clips and a binder clip."

Keith pulled the supplies out of the drawer. He snatched Kellyn's confiscated newspaper from the desk as he hurried back over to Kate, making sure that Kincaid was still occupied (now telling off students for throwing balls too close to the school building). He handed the items to Kate, who sat down at a nearby desk and began to bend one of the paperclips, frequently standing up to check the makeshift screwdriver against the screws in the grille. Keith placed the confiscated newspaper in his bag to return to its owner, and watched Kate intently for about five minutes.

"You really have a knack for these kinds of things," he said, impressed.

Kate mumbled a thanks under her breath, clearly too focused to reply adequately.

After another two minutes, Kate muttered excitedly and stood up to check the grille again. Using the binder clip as a handle, she turned the paperclip in the screw – and to her delight, it slowly turned. Keith watched eagerly as she inserted the paperclip screwdriver in each slot and removed the screws one by one. She removed the grille, set it aside, and stared at the wide opening into the air vent.

"That wouldn't have worked if the screws had been tighter," she said finally.

"You… you're incredible!" Keith said reverently.

Kate smiled modestly. "I do what I can."

Keith was halfway in the air vent before Kate realized something.

"Where's Mr. Kincaid?"

Keith cringed. "…oh _crap_," he whispered.

"Mr. Kincaid is where he is supposed to be," said a cool voice at the front of the classroom, "but Kate and Keith… _are not._"

The pair slowly turned, Keith pulling himself out of the air vent in the process. Mr. Kincaid stood at the door, his hair still dripping, arms full of Frisbees, baseballs, and packages of balloons. He looked more furious than either Ranger-in-training had ever seen him.

In their haste to open the vent, they had forgotten to check Mr. Kincaid's whereabouts for the past ten minutes.

"Going somewhere, Keith?" Kincaid said coldly, dumping the confiscated items on the desk. The pair exchanged a glance, both knowing beyond all doubt that they were not going to be getting a light punishment from Mr. Kincaid that day.

"Uh…"

"And _you_," Kincaid said, turning to Kate, "were helping him." He shook his head in disbelief. "To think that you would go so far as to attempt _escaping from detention_ for a mere twenty minutes of pleasant weather. You both will receive two weeks' worth of-"

"Mr. Kincaid," Keith interrupted.

"_What_?"

"It was my fault," Keith said loudly. "I told Kate to open the vent for me. She tried to talk me out of it, but I insisted. So you can punish me, Mr. Kincaid, but don't punish Kate."

Kate looked at Keith incredulously. "Keith-"

"Ah, self-sacrifice? Touching," Kincaid said tonelessly. "Fine, then. Kate, you will receive detention for the next four days for giving in to peer pressure, and Keith, you will be scrubbing the basement every evening after class for an hour until the day I am satisfied, even if that day is three months from now." He pointed to the door. "Go straight to the cafeteria. And Keith, if you do not turn in your homework for geography tomorrow, you'll be doing two hours tomorrow night instead of one."

The two walked slowly out of the room. Once Kincaid closed the door behind them, Keith sighed. "At this rate, we'll have spent more time at this school in detention than out of it." He looked sideways at his companion. "What's up?"

She looked at him, pouting. "You… you idiot, why'd you do that?"

Keith was floored. He thought his actions to save Kate from three months of cleaning the grimy basement to be noble, but she looked like she wanted to slap him. He didn't have a response for her, but gaped like a Magikarp.

Then, without warning, she launched herself into his arms, wrapping him in a tight hug. He was stunned for a solid fifteen seconds, but patted her on the back awkwardly. Finally, she pulled herself away and smiled warmly.

"That was very noble of you, Keith."

"Uh… thanks?"

She walked toward the lunchroom, pigtails bouncing, leaving a very confused Keith to wonder what had just happened. He pulled himself together in time to holler after her, "You owe me!"

Without turning around, she waved a hand dismissively. Keith grinned and followed her to the cafeteria for dinner.

They may have gotten in even more trouble than before, but he was pretty sure it had been the best detention ever.

**End**


End file.
